2009 Writers Guild Award Winners

New York and Los Angeles – The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) and the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) tonight announced the winners of the 2009 Writers Guild Awards for outstanding achievement in writing for screen, television, radio, news, promotional, and videogame writing at simultaneous ceremonies at the Hudson Theatre at the Millennium Broadway Hotel in New York City and the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.

SCREEN WINNERS
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAYMilk, Written by Dustin Lance Black, Focus Features

ADAPTED SCREENPLAYSlumdog Millionaire, Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy, Fox Searchlight
(Based on the Novel Q and A by Vikas Swarup)

LONG FORM, ORIGINAL (over one hour, one or two parts, one or two airing times)Recount, Written by Danny Strong; HBO

LONG FORM, ADAPTATION (over one hour, one or two parts, one or two airing times)John Adams, “Episode 1, Join or Die,” Teleplay by Kirk Ellis, HBO
(Based on the book by David McCullough)“Episode 2, Independence,” Teleplay by Kirk Ellis, HBO
(Based on the book by David McCullough)

6 Comments

Soap Fan • on Feb 8, 2009 10:44 am

A few things:

1 – They only nominated 2 daytime serials for this year’s awards. Yes, the soap opera industry is getting it’s budgets slashed and major stars are getting pay cuts or outright fired (Deirdre Hall & Drake Hogestyn for example), sets are fewer and smaller BUT if you write a great story with interesting characters and put them sitting at a table, people would wathc. It is all about the writing. I know that most of the soaps do not belong in this category for the past year’s worth of work BUT only “AS The World Turns (ATWT) and One LIfe To Live (OLTL) got nominated. Meanhwile, The Young and the Restless (Y&R) had one of it’s strongest years in at least 3-4 years and The Bold and the Beautiful also had some stand-out moments.

2 – Of the only 2 shows nominated, ATWT had one of their worst written years with the exec-prod, Chris Goutman, telling an interview that he thinks soaps should scale back to 3 times a week instead of 5 and they have turned what used to be a long-term arc genre into a 3 week arc mess. Everything is rushed and over before it began. Meanwhile, besides some very few weak moments, head writer Ron Carlivati and team, have revived and revitalized this show into an amazing, psychologically complex set of stories and characters filled with unpredictability and witty, intelligent dialogue that uses the show’s history and strengths of it’s actors.

ATWT winning just tells me that whomever voted has either no interest in daytime serials and do not watch them and just went with the longer-airing, more name familiar show because they don’t know about soaps. I can guarantee that if they do get the Daytime Emmy Awards on air this year that, there is no way in hell that ATWT will win it’s Best Writing award.

koppy • on Feb 8, 2009 12:31 pm

Fuck you Jimmy Kimmel! You lost to a boring award show and it was only the two of you nominated in the category???? HAHAHHAHAHA!!!!! Funniest thing you’ve ever done. You’ll never be nominated for anything ever again you disgusting hack fuck!!!!

This was cyber-bullying and didn’t need to be said. A person who is so inarticulate that they have to drop an “F-Bomb” in a critique shows ignorance and should be ignored as a waste of time and a cyber-bully.

I don’t watch Jimmy Kimmel, but I do read DeadlineHollywoodDaily. Koppy, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Thank you hal, I hadn’t thought of Milton Berle for a long time. I really liked Uncle Miltie and he could really turn a phrase.

Is this Kimmel person really a racist? I suspect that “Political Correctness” is getting a whole new meaning these days, and any true racist is soon going to be out of work. There are only two white women that you can make fun of these days, and that’s only if you are female.

Anonymous • on Feb 8, 2009 6:22 pm

“just_a_guy_says”

You are so right. It’s a disgrace and shows what a piece of shit bunch of hypocrites our guild is.

hal • on Feb 8, 2009 6:29 pm

So true Dave. It is more than just my own opinion (my friends feel similarly) that Kimmel seethes with disdain for anybody darker than he is. I have a former roommate who now works on his show and she says he painstakingly avoids hiring African Americans. He marginalizes the Mexican community on-air on a regular basis and let’s not even get into his simian looking “girl” friend’s brutal racial rants. (Sarah Silverman). I wish I found either of them remotely funny! Stewart, Colbert, even Conan…good, smart stuff.

Kimmel IS an unoriginal hack. I’m sure ABC wants to get rid of him, but can’t as yet figure out what to plop in his place.